His Canine Sweetheart
And the Thrilling Rush to See Her

Just like the male of our species, in or out of heat, a boy dog who has set his boy-dog heart on a suitable girl dog will respond with amazing enthusiasm to hearing that girlfriend’s name said, no matter what, where, or how.

My sister and I had figured this out, and—I confess—we once took shameful advantage of this.

This is what happened.

Well, first let me back up a little. One fine day in the summer of 1957 my mom surprised us all, Dad very much included, by calling us all into the kitchen, right away, come see; and by then, in front of her gathered and mystified audience, slowly unwrapping (un-blanketing, really) a large box (a small cage, really) containing what she now proudly informed us was an army dog.

An army dog?

Turns out this army dog was a pure-bred German Shepherd pup named Grip and he came free of charge. The arrangement she announced was that our family—in other words, my mom—would serve as a dog host to Grip whenever he was not called away for training or active duty.

She went on to tell us that this cute beyond cute little dog was to be trained as a mine-detecting dog (they do have a fantastic sense of smell these guys), and his initial four-month training spell would not be until the following summer.

There he was, looking up at us, gray, black and white and all paws and ears. Now, I don’t know if all puppies are the same or if even all German Shepherd puppies are the same but as for this Grip of ours his paws and ears had arrived fully grown then somehow affixed to a much too tiny a body—I mean, for heaven’s sake, he could and would trip on his ears and fall and roll over. Seriously, he did. We could not stop laughing, and he didn’t mind.

Wonderful temper, too, great with us kids, especially with Lili-Ann who was only going on four at the time and really fell in love with him. And so, while he did go away now and then, he stayed with us most of the time and grew and grew and eventually, as fully a grown near-wolf, turned into one very impressive canine. Didn’t like other dogs too much though, even bit half an ear off of one, but that’s another story.

In this story—yes, we’re getting there—one of Mom’s friends also had a German Shepherd, a lady one. Smaller, almost petite by comparison. Her name was Ritti, and Einar (the owner) would bring her along whenever he came to visit. Needless to say, even though I believe Grip had been “fixed” as they say, a deep and meaningful relationship developed between the two shepherds and it did not take long before all you had to do to perk Grip’s ears right up was to say “Ritti.” Where, where, where? He’d bark and scratch at the door to be let out. And to be fair (and kind) me and my sister usually only Ritti’ed him when we saw Einar’s car (and old Mercedes Benz) come down the road that led to our little cottage out in the field. Then we’d let him out and he’d run in circles of anticipation (literally) until Einar arrived and parked and let Ritti out to say hi—they have an amazing “say hi” routine, dogs do.

So that’s one component of the story: Grip and his true dog love for Ritti.

The other component is an amazing phenomenon that happened (still does, I assume) most every spring in the northern parts of my country: We call it “skare”.

Skare is the crust—often deep and strong enough to support a grown walking on it, no problem—that forms when evening and colder air sets on the fields of snow whose surface have melted during the warmer sunlight hours. After a warm March day, the later afternoon, evening (and the following morning) can see miles and miles of white, walkable fields stretch in all directions. Sometimes this crust (skare) was so strong we kids would play soccer on it—especially if the day following the sun-melt returned to frigid temperatures.

As an aside, one day I was telling a woman from Quebec, Canada about this skare and asking if they had the same where she came from, and yes, she said, they sure did. Not only that, she had once experienced the once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon where the melting had been so severe during the day that once evening came and the following much colder day, the surrounding fields were all skateable. Skateable! Wow. The surface of the crust had turned smooth, skateable, white field in all directions. What a picture. Did they skate it? I asked. Why, of course.

Amazing. But back to the story.

So, there’s a third component to this story, and that is that Mom had trained Grip to pull a dog-sled (pulka in Swedish): a light sled with just about enough room for one small sister or one older brother (or, on the odd occasion, on older brother with sister in his lap). The bamboo harness was very light as well and flexible.

Grip actually liked to pull this sled, though not so much if there were more than one of us in the sled; and he preferred Lili-Ann, of course, being the lighter pull.

We have now arrived at late afternoon of a sunny snow-surface-melting day and the crust is now very much walkable and also eminently sled-pullable. A perfect dog-sled crust had formed with a firm and grainy surface for good dog-paw grip, while smooth enough for almost zero sled-runner friction. Yes, perfect.

This was an opportunity not to be missed. We had discussed this, sister and I, formed the plan. And this was the day. So we harness Grip and set out. For most of the outward leg of this our experiment, I walked beside him, and Lili-Ann sat in the sled. I would run occasionally and Grip would run too. Very much fun for both dog and little sister.

About half a mile out I stopped and so did Grip. I took the harness and led Grip and sled in a 180-degree turn to now face our little cottage, off in the distance. I then eased myself into the sled and placed my sister on my lap, and then, with one voice, we both yelled the magic word: “Ritti!”

You have no idea how fast a dog can run, even pulling two children in a sled, when he’s heading back home at the beckoning of his heart. I mean, fast. Very fast. Our eyes were tearing from the wind in our faces, and we were both screaming with, yes, joy, for this was amazing, and Grip didn’t slow down, not even a bit, but just kept charging and we’d keep tossing him the verbal Ritti-carrot every so often just to ensure velocity. And here we come, incredible miles an hour toward our little cottage and its attached barn and now we’re heading into the snow-covered front yard at non-diminished speed and here comes the not metaphorical barn door and here stops Grip on a dime—a feat not replicated by sled nor by its passengers ending in a pile of dog, sled, children and shrieks. An initial (and quick) terror turned to relieved laughter as we discovered that nothing (including Grip) was broken and the only thing that put a damper on things was Mom who at this point had to rush out to see what could possibly have run into the barn door with such a fracas.

Yes, we could see her point, Grip could have been hurt. One of us could have been hurt. Yes, we promised, not again, ever again.

And we kept that promise, more for Grip’s sake than anything else for there he stood, broken-hearted (the only casualty), wondering where had his true love gone.

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